SotB XXIX: The Pointy End
As Saber rampages against the Zygerrian Slavers' Guild, the agents are called on to protect the one responsible for his mother's assassination, Atai Molec. Agents Session 1 * Balken Oppen * Erdogan Cael * Fai Mei * Jokan Benn * Kii'Vera * Kruger * Rogesh Vai * (Saber Scintel) Session 2 Session 2 Recording * Durin Boge * Hawk * HAX-75 * Nogg Nubo * Rogesh Vai * (Shorbecca) Mission Report Summary by Ben The team is contacted by Kluus, now the rebel ambassador to Zygerria. He informs the group that Saber has been on a rampage, systematically eliminating members of the board. The only ones left are Atai and a Zygerrian general. Kluus still believes that Atai should be taken alive, in order to mete out proper justice and not allow his world to fall back into tyranny. The crew is understandably skeptical, and negotiate for a hefty payment. Kluus does agree to get some money around, but requests that the team also retrieve an agent he has aboard Atai’s ship. The agents quickly punch in an astrogation solution to the nebula where the ship in quest, The Master, is hiding. Nogg manages to navigate the nebula a little too well, and they emerge just ahead of the enemy corvette, which immediately opens fire and scores a hit on the Sunflare. At the same time, a small freighter docked with The Master explodes, causing a massive amount of trauma to the hull and crippling its weapons systems. The corvette also goes into a tailspin straight toward the Sunflare, but Nogg manages to evade the impact, and with the help of Hawk they use the Sunflare’s tractor beam to straighen the Master from its tailspin before boarding. Aboard the ship, the artificial gravity appears to be out, making traversing its corridors cumbersome. In light of that, the team heads to Engineering to get the stability back in line. However, along the way, they find a pair of bounty hunters in the hall, apparently stranded after the explosion. Boge tries to convince them to let the agents through, but the bounty hunters instead call some allies, telling them there’s a ship docked to escape on. Rogesh then launches a sneak attack with a poison dart, striking one of the hunters straight in the neck. The other quickly bolts down the hallway, but Hawk dispatches him from a distance. Confiscating the bounty hunter comlink, Rogesh tries to mimic the hunter’s voice to call off the other hunters. Rogesh asks about the well-being of the general, and the others seem surprised at the idea of the general surviving. In an attempt to deceive them, Rogesh says that the general is still under their protection aboard the ship. The hunters take the bait and tell them to get the general to safety as soon as possible. Proceeding into the engineering section, the crew sees a beast bolt past into the rooms ahead. With caution, the crew keeps their heads down and tries to sneak in, but only Hawk and Rogesh can stay hidden. The beast appears to be the pet of a bounty hunter, who confronts the others angrily before the hidden agents make a sneak attack against him and his partners. The beast, however, leaps upon Rogesh as he is taking his shot, and Hawk opens fire, downing one of the bounty hunters. Embo, the leader of this group of hunters, returns fire on Hawk and incapacitates him with his modified bowcaster. However, at this moment, Nogg notices that the nearby reactor is going into meltdown and needs to be contained, or else the whole ship might be destroyed. Using this as leverage, Boge gets Embo to stand down and allows Nogg the time to repair the reactor. Realizing they may have similar goals and that Nogg just saved their lives, Embo and his allies stand down and return Hawk to consciousness. In particlar, HAX-75, the bounty hunter’s medical droid, assists in mending wounds and enhancing Nogg’s abilities. It appears that elsewhere in the ship, there’s an extra draw of power. Before they move out to pursue Saber and Atai, Nogg checks life support and finds that someone has just collapsed the life support system, putting the ship into deep alert and gravely endangering everyone aboard. In the meantime, Hawk manages to convince Embo to keep in contact with him. On their way over to the life support section, the team finds a crowd of zygerrian guards dispatched in various ways. One of them is still barely alive, and HAX is able to resuscitate him and drags the guard along for rescue. Nogg, meanwhile, gets the life support back into working order, buying them more time to pursue Saber and Atai. With that problem settled, they head out again and come across a hidden door and console. Rogesh accesses the door while Nogg slices into the console and kicks out another user in the system. Inside the room is said user, a cybernetically enhanced zygerrian with a pair of modified battle droids as guards. Boge tries to get the slicer to stand down, but another voice over the comms convinces him to keep opposing the agents. As he turns to slice back in, a malfunction with power distribution after the reactor restart causes the console to overload and fry. Rogesh then tries to get him to stand down, and the slicer reluctantly helps interfere with one of the droids while the team engages the other. Hawk trades shots with one of the droids, and it responds by launching a pair of grenades into the crowd at the doorway. Nogg is able to catch one with his repulsor rifle and launch it back, damaging the droid while taking some shrapnel, himself. The slicer, somewhat back to his sense, tries to undo his own work against the other droid using his cybernetic brain enhancement, but ends up catastrophically switching his consciousness with the droid, entering its body while the droid occupies his cybernetic brain. Struck with sudden existential terror, he collapses in the corner and Atai emerges, proposing an agreement. At the same moment, Saber approaches from behind and lifts Atai into the air. Boge attempts to calm Saber, but can’t quite get through before the lightsaber comes out. Immediately, Nogg jumps onto Atai to shield him and Rogesh moves for Saber to restrain him. After an appeal to Saber’s ambition to be a leader, Boge does get him to see the fault in his reasoning and he stands down, agreeing to let Atai go to face trial. The crew heads back toward the ship, but they remember their secondary objective and divert to the brig to snatch up Miraj, the undercover agent planted by Kluus. She’s unconscious on a torture table, but HAX rouses her and tends to her immediate wounds, getting her up and coherent in time for the whole posse to evacuate. SotB 029